Remember the old joke from Driftglass back in the Bush Administration?

Dick Cheney is caught tossing flaming kittens at homeless veterans. What are the first three words out of Cokie Roberts's mouth?

"But the Democrats..."

And last night as Republicans alone tried to figure out how to keep a promise to take away health insurance from between sixteen and thirty-two million American citizens, including veterans, disabled children, and cancer patients like John McCain...

Brian Williams had to make absolutely sure that "but the Democrats" was added to the mix. Because

That.
Is.
His.
Job.

It's a good thing Heidi Przybyla wasn't in studio with Brian, and didn't have my brain in her skull, because I would have dope slapped Brian into the 14th hour for this. (And props to Ali Velshi for just reporting the fact, the FACT, that it's Republicans doing this and it's been Republicans doing this for seven years.)

ALI VELSHI: This is a very, very dangerous game given that in seven years Republicans couldn't come up with a good enough replacement. The idea that you repeal some of the elements of it so that you can say you cast a deciding vote or a decisive vote in repealing Obamacare to keep a promise, could plunge America into a much worse situation than we were even before Obamacare, which was actually pretty bad.

Please note. There is NO way to "both sider" that. But watch Brian Williams do it anyway with a completely straight face:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Imagine that. We can all repeat the phrase "repeal replace, repeal replace" in our sleep. Heidi, one final word from you, when do the Democrats get off the bench and have to own part of this process?

Heidi Przybyla is a professional. I would have gone full, well, White House Communications Director on his ass. She pointed out that Democrats have always been willing to fix Obamacare, but not defund the entire healthcare system of the United States including Medicaid.

Then at the end of the hour Velshi and Senator Chris Murphy are talking to Brian and again, there is no way to make this other than an attempt by ONE party, the Republican Party, to do something really bad to Americans.

ALI VELSHI: I guess it didn't occur to them that it's really hard to figure out this health care thing. So now we are going to fulfill a promise, possibly tonight, and in the course of the next 24 hours if the House takes this up, fulfill the promise to repeal Obamacare and in the process quite possibly destroy American health care. This is very serious. There's nobody who doesn't think American health care needs fixing. and there are lots of ways to fix this. somehow this United States Senate has found the way to make it worse.

WILLIAMS: What happened to the idea of getting the input of the customers? John Mccain for one was saying he's in constant touch with his governor. A lot of the Republicans tonight said we're talking to our governors back home.

VELSHI: Yeah, a number of governors in a bipartisan way have come in and said, 'You don't understand how this is going to affect us.' There's something going around that said Obamacare was passed in the dead of the night without anybody reading it. there was a year of meetings. everybody had a say there. these same groups have all written to Mitch McConnell just asked for a meeting, never mind a hearing. There have been no hearings. and the other day I got into it with somebody who said, 'that's not true, we've had lots of hearings.' There just haven't been any. You need to talk to the customer, the health care providers and craft something that really works. Obamacare got a lot more people insured. It didn't deal with costs. And for a portion of the population insurance premiums went the wrong direction. I met a gentleman last night telling me about the amount his family pays for insurance and how much it spiked under Obamacare. This is real. We need to fix those things. we're now going in the opposite direction.

WILLIAMS: We found Chris Murphy. We have seconds left and only time for one question. Senator, thank you for rushing to our camera. Give me your 30-second version of what appears to us to be the most cynical way possible to talk about and legislate health care.

SEN CHRIS MURPHY: This is really a health care system arson. They're lighting the health care system on fire. The real danger is there is no conference committee. Maybe they go to a conference for a few weeks and give up on it and pass it through the House of Representatives. They're so desperate for a win, I'm worried they're going to take this, put it into law, Trump will pressure them to do it and we'll light our entire health care system on fire. Nobody should assume there's going to be a functional conference out of this. This bill may become law. Every single senator thinking of voting for this tonight has to own that and know it.

WILLIAMS: What an ominous note to end on. Chris Murphy, one of the 100 US Senators who is responsible for what happens tonight.

Oh please, Brian. Three Republicans could have stopped this legislative terrorism